Let’s say you’re a new teacher or you’re
teaching a class you haven’t taught before or something unexpected
happens in your class; if you’d like some advice, all you need to do is
ask. Anybody who’s spent any time in the classroom seemingly has the
right to offer advice. And if you’d rather read advice, there’s still
plenty offered in the pedagogical literature, to say nothing of blogs
and other social media sources.

Some of the advice offered by colleagues and in articles is
excellent. Most of us can recite the good and wise things we’ve learned
from fellow teachers. But not all instructional advice is equally good,
and it’s not always easy to separate the good advice from advice that is
decidedly ho-hum or just plain not very good. The problem is that
really bad advice can be delivered articulately and with great
conviction. So when a colleague offers advice or you read an article
that tells you what you should do about some instructional issue, here
are some criteria you can use to consider the merits of what’s being
offered...I think all of us ought to be a bit more careful about offering advice,
particularly the definitive here’s-exactly-how-you-do-that kind of
instructional advice. If something works well for us, that doesn’t
guarantee it’s going to work equally well when another teacher who
teaches a different subject and larger classes tries to use it. Making
suggestions, proposing alternatives, exploring options, and asking
questions is a better way of helping someone who looks like he or she
might want or need advice.Read more...

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About Me

Hello, my name is Helge Scherlund and I am the Education Editor and Online Educator of this personal weblog and the founder of eLearning • Computer-Mediated Communication Center.
I have an education in the teaching adults and adult learning from Roskilde University, with Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) and Human Resource Development (HRD) as specially studied subjects. I am the author of several articles and publications about the use of decision support tools, e-learning and computer-mediated communication. I am a member of The Danish Mathematical Society (DMF), The Danish Society for Theoretical Statistics (DSTS) and an individual member of the European Mathematical Society (EMS). Note: Comments published here are purely my own and do not reflect those of my current or future employers or other organizations.